1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management apparatus for acquiring and managing counter information, such as the number of sheets ejected, from an image forming apparatus (e.g., a printer or copier) and to an information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
One traditional method used in obtaining a counter value indicating, for example, the number of sheets printed (ejected) from a target device (image forming apparatus) in a print management system is a method of obtaining information on all counter types in the target device. Another method of obtaining information on a counter type instructed from a management server to a target device is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-222161.
Unfortunately, the above-mentioned methods have the problems described below.
Information on all counter types obtained from all devices involves unnecessary information, and this may cause an increase in network traffic.
If information items on counter types specified from a management server are obtained in a collective manner, the degree of flexibility in device management is reduced, for example, a counter value of a counter type unsuited for actual use in each base of management may be obtained or a counter value of a desired counter type may be unobtainable. This leads to a problem of reducing benefit to a user.
The actual use in each base of management indicates the usage in which a plurality of image forming apparatuses existing in the same base of management typically have shared counter types to be displayed on their respective local panels to some extent. A typical approach to obtaining and managing counter information on a counter type suited for such actual use is to obtain and manage a counter value of a counter type displayed on a local panel (hereinafter sometimes represented as a local user interface (LUI)) of a device. To achieve this, it is preferable that a counter type set to be displayed on a local panel be obtained for each device and counter information for the counter type be obtained.
However, depending on the facility of a target device, a low-functionality image forming apparatus or an earlier-model image forming apparatus may be unable to allow obtainment of a counter type displayed on its local panel. If there are both an image forming apparatus that allows obtainment of information on a counter type displayed on its local panel and an image forming apparatus that does not allow the obtainment, an unfavorable situation, such as the absence of counter information to be obtained from a low-functionality image forming apparatus, may occur. That is, it is difficult to obtain information on a counter type suited for actual use for each base of management.